The Good, the Bad, and the Not So Great: Archaeological Curation at the New Jersey State Museum

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Navigating Ethical and Legal Quandaries in Modern Archaeological Curation" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Unlike most state museums, the New Jersey State Museum operates directly under the Department of State, and this has its advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, we enjoy interacting with the public through programming, exhibitions, research, presentations, and publications. On the other hand, budget cuts, reduced staff, and leadership changes potentially every four years puts tremendous strains on the professional staff. As curator and state archaeologist, my position is to care for New Jersey’s cultural resources, direct the state's NAGPRA compliance, and maintain the site registration program. The position of state archaeologist is not mandated by the legislature—it is technically a variant of of the curator state title. It is hard to keep up with the amount of material generated by cultural resource management, as well as having to put up exhibitions and maintain the site registration program. This presentation lays out many of these and other issues faced by the Bureau of Archaeology and Ethnography at the New Jersey State Museum, and how to the best of my and others ability we try and navigate them.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Navigating Ethical and Legal Quandaries in Modern Archaeological Curation   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32822